Extreme Behavior
Extreme Behavior is the second studio album by American singer Natasha Lewis. It was released on May 19, 2009, by Prepy Records. Natasha worked with various producers on the album, including Xenomania, Bloodshy & Avant, Sean Garret and Polow da Don. Extreme Behavior is a pop, dance-pop and R&B album with modern music influences. Described as a turning point in Natasha's career, it represents a departure from the old-school pop sound of her previous release, Sexy Sweet Thing (2007). Apart from the sound, she also endorsed a new image for the release going from a sexy girl next door to a sexy nasty bombshell. Critics gave mixed reviews of the album, criticising it's lack of cohesion and consistency, though some praised the album's production overall. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold 224,000 copies in its first week. Certified seven-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), it sold more than 2.2 million copies in the United States. The album reached number one in Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Extreme Behavior spawned seven singles, including the international hits "Slave" and "You Spin Me Round"; Rolling Stone placed the former at number 455 on the magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. In support of the album, Rihanna embarked on her first worldwide concert tour, the Hollywood Doll Tour. The album was reissued as Extreme Behavior: Reeducated in March 2010 with three new songs, including the Billboard Hot 100 top 3 hit "Wow". Background and recording Lewis' debut studio album, ''Sexy Sweet Thing'', was released in August 2007. It is a pop-oriented record with dance influences. It had a mixed critical reception: some critics praised it's catchiness, while others criticized some of the album's songs as dated. Around its time of release, many critics felt that Lewis' style, sound, and musical material were too similar toother artist, who could do it better. The album sold over 543,000 copies in the United Kingdom and more than 2,288,000 copies in the United States. In late 2008, Natasha began work on her second studio album. In an interview with MTV News, she announced that "the new music is going in a different direction. I just want to hear something fresh and mostly r&b oriented. I think that's where I want to go on this one". Lewis explained that she wanted to keep the audience dancing and feeling empowered at the same time. She sought to make an album that people would listen to without skipping tracks. In February 2009, Lewis revealed that she called the album Extreme Behavior because it represents her sexier and more mature image: "I'm not the girl next door anymore. I'm taking a lot more risks and chances. I fell sexy, I love my body, I love being a woman and I want to show that". Release Extreme Behavior was released on May 19.2009. An explicit version of Extreme Behavior was also released and features a Parental Advisory label due to some of the lyrical content. Lewis embarked on a promotional tour across Europe and North America to promote the album's release, and she also did some special sessions for AOL and Yahoo! where she performed the singles and some other new songs, including "Poetry". In early 2010, Rihanna unveiled a new song, "Wow", on the KIIS-FM radio show On Air with Ryan Seacrest. MTV News reported that the track would serve as the lead single from Extreme Behavior: Reeducated, a reissue of the original album. Natasha further announced that the expanded album would contain another two songs, "Feline" and "Hollywood", the lead single on Europe and the promo single for the tour respectively, to supplement the original track listing. Singles Released as the lead single from Extreme Behavior, "Bad Girl" was sent to pop, rhythmic and urban radio in the US on February 9, 2009. The song received positive reviews from music critics, who praised its production, vocals and freshness. "Bad Girl" reached top ten in more than twenty countries worldwide, including on the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. In the United Kingdom, the song went number 3, as well as in the US, while in Canada it was number one for two consecutive weeks. The second single from the album, "You Spin Me Round", was serviced to pop radio in the US on April 14, and rhythmic radio the following week. The song received a positive response from critics, who praised the production and the good sampling from the 80's hit "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" by Dead or Alive . It reached the top ten on more than twenty national charts, including number one on the UK Singles Chart for three consecutive weeks and number 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100. "Slave" was released as the third single from the album on June 2010. The song received positive reviews from music critics, who praised its production. "Slave" won Best International Song at the 2010 NRJ Music Awards. The single peaked atop of the singles charts in eight countries, including on the US Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart. It is the second-best selling single by Natasha Lewis in the United States, with 3,821,000 digital copies sold as of June 2017. "Poetry" was served as the fourth single from the album. The song did well on the charts, but was highly overshadowed by the previous one. It received mixed to positive reviews from critics, who praised Lewis' vocal abilities but called the song cliché. "One Shot" was the fifth single from the album, and thanks to the music video it reached great numbers on charts around the globe. After the music video release, the song climbed on iTunes US from 84 to number 1, making a big jump on the Hot 100 chart the following week, peaking at number 3. "Wow" and "Feline" were released as the lead singles from the album's reissue, the latter being released for Europe and the former to the rest of the globe. "Wow" managed to get good numbers, thanks again to the music video that had appearances from some famous people and drawed lots of attention. "Feline" failed to impact, peaking at number #26 on the UK Charts. Critical reception At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Extreme Behavior received an average score of 58, which indicates "mixed or average reviews", based on 24 reviews. David Browne of Entertainment Weekly found Spears's increasingly provocative image to be unnatural, noting "she's trying to hard to be sexy that it ends up being vulgar". Los Angeles Times Nikki Tranton complimented the production of the songs, but questioned if Lewis was really that empowered woman or if she only wanted attention. Sal Cinquemani of Spin agreed, writing that although "Extreme Behavior fills her role of empowering album (the disc certainly satiates more than her previous effort), it's time for Lewis to quit being such a cock-tease and bring something up that will make her sound like a true example for women". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave a positive review, feeling that the album "strives to deepen Lewis' persona" and proves she "will know what to do from now on". Similarly, a reviewer from The Independent commented that the project was "a nicely varied, wholly satisfying collection". Chris Heat of The Guardian praised Natasha for "using this opportunity to take the odd risk and adds a welcome edge to her sound." By contrast, Stephen Thompsonof The A.V. Club panned the album, opining that the music "just doesn't bring anything new to the pop table". Craig Seymore of Spin recognized that she "sounds almost empowered" but criticized that "despise two or three interesting tunes, the rest of the record is as more of the same as ever". Track listing Standard version Reeducated version